The bench of Rajasthan high Court at Jodhpur had stayed all kind of constructions including commercial and industrial within 1 Km radius of Kumbhalgarh Wildlife Reserve premises.
As per the Court order, The Principal Secretary, Department of Tourism and district collector, Rajsamand and Pali shall be personally responsible for ensuring order compliance.
The Complete issue arose after a PIL filed by an advocate Rituraj Singh. As per PIL, the forest department issued an order in regard to prohibit commercial and industrial activities in 1 KM zone from the protected area boundaries. Further, PIL reads, A guest house with 20 rooms is purely a commercial activity but as per the department of tourism, such guest houses don’t come under commercial activity.
Beyond this reserve, revenue authorities have been directed not to convert any land in the areas up to 1km from the boundaries of the protected areas of Ranthambore, Sariska, Kumbhalgarh wildlife sanctuary and Jawai leopard conservation reserve.
The petitioner claimed, the National Tiger Conservation Authority published a feasibility report for declaring Kumbhalgarh and Todgarh Raoli wildlife sanctuaries as potential tiger reserves. In the report, it has been specifically recommended that the sanctuaries are in the form of a thin stretch and hence it is inescapable to broaden and bring more areas under these sanctuaries to announce them as tiger reserve.
